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Scrubby trees conceal the entrance. One sloping timber tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus cabinets stocked of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians monitor a display. The screen reveals the movements of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean hospital look at a monitor displaying enemy kamikaze and reconnaissance drones in the region.

This is Ukraine’s covert underground hospital. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in eastern Ukraine not far from the frontline and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are 6 metres below the earth. This is the safest method of delivering care to our wounded military personnel. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” said the facility's lead doctor, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station treats 30-40 patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of Russian first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which drop explosives with deadly precision. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We see few gunshot wounds. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a new type of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean installation for caring for wounded troops in eastern Ukraine.

On one day last week, a group of three military members limped into the facility. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV explosion had torn a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He fell down. Then the Russians dropped a another explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the settlement is demolished. There are drones all around and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier explained his squad endured over a month in a forest area near the city, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to reach their location was by walking. All supplies came by drone: food and drinking water. A week after he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic checked his vital signs. Following care, a nurse provided him with fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

The soldier, 28, stated a FPV drone ripped a minor injury in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I couldn’t feel any feeling or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been killed. There are ongoing explosions.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, he said he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to fight days before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as doctors laid him on a medical cot, took off a stained bandage and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A fragment of artillery hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to return to my military group. Someone must defend our country,” he said.

Medical staff care for the wounded soldier, who was injured in the back by a piece of artillery shell.

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly targeted hospitals, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. According to human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in nearly 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is constructed from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and granular material placed above reaching the surface. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm artillery shells and even multiple 8kg TNT charges dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the building, intends to build 20 units in total. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally important for saving the survival of our armed forces and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The organization described the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken after the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, explained some wounded personnel had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the danger of air assaults. “We had a pair of severely injured casualties who came at the early hours. I had to carry out a double amputation on one of them. The soldier's bleeding control device had been on for such an extended period there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe operations? “My career in medicine for 20 years. One must focus,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported Mykolaichuk up the tunnel and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed under a shrub. He and the other soldiers were taken to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The underground hospital staff took a break. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded up to the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”